Chapter Seventeen
While standing on the border of the road, a path of dust, sand, gravel and small stones that sparkled vaguely, I remembered the man in the park, how he had given me a cigarette and how softly he had spoken. I remembered that he had walked away and come back with two coffees and a fresh pack of smokes. The coffee was too sweet and he’d bought cigarettes that weren’t strong, but he was kind. I’d understood in my way that he was well meaning in word and deed. I hadn’t been afraid of him. He had told me in a sad way of his brother who was in a hospital and would probably never be released.
“There’s something wrong with my brother’s mind,” he’d said.
“Jeez, that’s tough,” I’d replied, wondering why he was telling family secrets.
He’d looked at me awhile, smiled and cleared his throat. “Where are you going,” he asked. I wondered how he knew I was going anywhere.
“Oh,” he answered, “you just look like a guy on the move.”
A lull in our conversation followed.
“Come on,” he said, “If you want I’ll give you a ride to the highway.”
After I’d grabbed my bag, we had made haste to leave the park behind. I had forgotten, by then, my brother and his true identity, but for the odd twinge of wonder at the craziness of it all. Was he who they said he was?
In what seemed a few moments we’d put twenty miles between the city and us and then I was alone on the highway with my benefactor’s words ringing in my ears.
“You are worthwhile. I know you have suffered, believe me I know. Many people don’t acknowledge your brand of suffering. Don’t let them get you down. You’re too good and you’re too strong. Goodbye, Carmen.”
He had sped off, leaving me alone in the cloud of exhaust fumes his u-turn left behind, standing at the side of the road, wondering what he’d been talking about.
I toyed with the money in my pocket that he had given to me. So nice, so kind, if I’d had any tears at the ready I think I would have cried again. I reminded myself to say a prayer for his brother.
It seemed that after the thrashing I’d taken in the city, being at the side of the road was where I belonged. No one was going to kick me while I slept; no man would make me roll cigarettes for him. There might not be much food, no streets lined with restaurants, but your next meal could be but a ride away. Some kind soul might invent a chore that needed doing; someone might share their sandwiches. I figured, though not in so many words, that a hungry stomach once in a while only taught you to appreciate food, whether it was spread out on a pleasant table in front of you or a quick snack at the side of the road.
I had been dropped right in front of a gas station that, as though in step with my musings, sold food, as well as gas and cold beer. Right away a struggle began, one that I knew a small part of me would lose. Common sense told me to spend wisely while the rest of me with its loose morality could care less if I spent my last buck on a glass of beer. Acceptable arguments were sure to be put forth on each side of the argument, between sips. I studied the pub; a heavyset man was exiting, staggering slightly as he walked to his car.
In the tavern, I decided against beer and ordered a bottle of their finest wine.
“A bottle of the best is fairly expensive,” the waitress informed me, “you don’t look like you could afford it. Do you have any money?”
“Of course I do,” I countered, “I wouldn’t be in here if I didn’t. I have twenty dollars, at least.”
“That’s not going to take you far,” she shot back, “why don’t you have a beer, or a pitcher of beer. Beer’s more in your price range.”
“Now just a minute…” I began, but she cut me off.
“Look, I saw you out there, ready to stick your thumb out and I saw you look twice at our sign. I knew you couldn’t have much cash or you’d be taking the bus. I was sure you’d end up in here. I’m not trying to put you down.”
“Alright then,” I said, “bring me a pitcher of your finest.”
“Coming right up,” she said with a hint of mockery and she was gone. She’s trying to flirt with me, I thought, I’d better be careful.
As soon as I took the first sip and it made its way past my taste buds, stopped to cool my parched throat and hinted at going to my head in the incomparable way of alcohol, I had a hunch that I was traveling head first towards some type of conflict.
I was overwrought yet wistful, longing for some type of sense. Life in Edmonton had left a hum inside that I couldn’t get rid of. My brother was Jesus with a neon countenance and I was a bum. To top it off, the contrast between brothers made for such a good joke that it kept the whole city I’d left behind laughing.
In no way duty bound, free to walk away from the sweet ambrosia, I nonetheless started whittling away on my second pitcher. I smoked a cigarette every time I felt hungry. I was laying odds that it wouldn’t be long until I was urged to drink up by a barkeep pretending to be friendly, but, who had actually long since lost patience with most of his customers. He dreamed of owning a bistro in a trendy section of a real city - a cow town like Edmonton would never suffice. Poor Mr. Misunderstood was so much better than his fellow man.
Time flies. I wasn’t sure if I had been thrown out of the saloon or if I’d staggered to the spot of grass, hidden by a bush, where I found myself. I felt my face – nothing broken. I checked my pockets – nothing there. I lay back and looked at the stars. A nearby shape that was a clump of trees spoke to me, throbbing in cadence to the words. It was saying something about university. The syllabic patterns of the words that came out of that patch of trees in the middle of nowhere were in rhythm with the pulsations of the stars.
I was on the receiving end of a strange conversation, all about higher education. I turned over on my stomach, closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands. Why does everything have to talk anyways, I wondered? Sleep soon found me and dragged me under for what remained of darkness, sparing me the solitary hours filled with shadows and import.
I woke early the next morning to a sky that most would say was early morning majestic, vast, low, and radiant. A dark mood had a hold on me and I would have described the sky as a glaring and harsh fact of life, one to be shielded from. I went to look for some water and aspirin.
Water is not hard to find in Canada. Finding someone who would give you a glass of it can be, but I did some creative groveling at the tavern. I could have sworn later that I had promised in a vague and murky way to move on in exchange for having my thirst quenched, but I wasn’t sure.
Standing on the side of the road I had no way of knowing that I was clinically insane. I didn’t know that reason and insanity mix together like a block of ice and the desert sun. When faced with insanity, sanity bows out. Reason, without chemical intervention, loses to madness.
In my state I took things at face value. There were no hallucinations or delusions; it was all quite real. That being said, I needed an explanation, something to account for what I was seeing in front of me. No amount of clear thinking could have made sense of it. How could I expect to understand?
My problem was that my father was happily passing me on the highway, driving every second or third car that went by. I didn’t get it. He’d drive by smoking a cigarette, looking at his watch, scratching behind his ear, eating a sandwich, picking his nose; the same face that I knew well, seemed to wear a smirk that got bigger and bigger, keeping pace with my growing agitation. Eventually a car stopped; mercifully, it was one not driven by my father.
“Where ya’ headin’?” he asked in happy kind of way.
“Anyplace is better than here,” I replied.
“Well,” he said, and I expected him to say he was going a few miles up the road, “I’m goin’ straight through to Winnipeg.”
“So am I,” I said, “so am I - if that’s okay with you, that is.”
Though we seemed to play an inordinate amount of car tag with my father’s clones, no one had stepped forward and made a serious attempt to hurt us. I grew frightened when I realized those people were all wearing masks. Why, I asked, why do they hate me? They were hideous in a washed out, dreary way. Every second or third driver on the highway looked just like dear old Dad. They had a pale glow. In spite of myself I became grave and concerned.
I thought that my father must be a rich and important man to be able to afford to have so many people made up to look like him and then to have them follow and harass me. I thought that they might be the living dead I had heard about and I shuddered.My friend seemed worried.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you alright?”
“Oh yeah, just thinking about my father. “ Under my voice I muttered, ‘yeah, and 1001 zombies.”
“What was that? That last part, c’mon, come clean?”
“I was just thinking about the zombies my father has tracking me.”
“I knew it,” he laughed, “you are crazy. Well don’t worry about it, that is, unless you think I might be a zombie.”
“No sir,” I said, “I don’t think you’re one of them.”
He left me at the corner of Portage and Main, under a streetlight that shone brightly in the dark night.
“Welcome,” a voice out of nowhere said. “Welcome,” said another, “to Universe City.”
Within twenty-four hours I would know what was what. I would come to understand that I had not been brought to a western city, as I had believed, to go to university, no, I knew the clones on the highway had somehow steered me through a cosmic maze to where I found myself, that being someplace the voices called Universe City.
The voices were my enemies and had cornered me as I walked, just a few blocks from what was soon enough to be my home, the sweet Sally Anne located at Main and Logan. It was a skid row flophouse that looked much the same as any other I’d encountered. Before taking up residence there I would receive some psychiatric treatment and that would work for as long as I stuck with the program.
Out of thin air the vocalizations came at me.
“Look at him,” one said.
“I know,” responded another, “he’s not old enough to be smoking. He is a he isn’t he?”
”Put that out.”
“There’s no Jesus here.”
“Welcome to Universe City.”
I could have sworn I was in hell, but apparently not. I was the new guy in Universe City. I had no money and nowhere to go. I no longer knew who or where I was. Was I in purgatory? Was I dead? Soon enough the bitter winter of the province of Manitoba would be upon us. That night I found refuge curled up on the, smooth, cold cement floor of a bus shelter. I slept fitfully.
The next morning a nondescript man drove by, smiling as I stretched at the side of the street. He seemed as though he was in possession of privileged information. He wore a grin that seemed to say he was enjoying my undoing immensely. He had a look about him of complete satisfaction and I thought he had been waiting a lifetime for my humiliation. His big, blue car hissed a message as it receded.
“Your mine,” it said.
“Piss off, all of you, just piss off,” I shrieked.
There was something about a talking car that put me over the edge. Before I could stop myself I was begging,
“Whoever you are, God, Jesus, Satan, Dad, I give. I don’t care, take anything you want, do what you want. I surrender, just stop hurting me.”
“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” one voice mocked.
“He doesn’t get it,” said the other.
“He’s going to get it.”
“We haven’t started hurting you.”
“Not yet.”
A car squealing far off sounded like a scream. My mother materialized in my mind. Her nose had been flattened to one side by a cruel blow. She tried to smile but couldn’t.
“You aren’t the only one.”
“We don’t like her either.”
“That’s right, we don’t like her either and when we don’t like someone...”
There was a pause and then I realized that the voices had been inside my head, looking around. They had seen my mother’s image in my mind. I had in no wise spoken of her.
My heart began racing. I had to get out of this place, this Universe City. But, I was lost, as lost as I’d ever been. I started to walk, looking for any person, place or thing that would help me defeat the voices, those cowards who with a clear conscious used their distinct advantage, invisibility, as a weapon against me. A cruel quiet had settled on the world around me. I drew no peace from the hush; it only seemed presentiment making it very clear that I would again be visited by those voices that lived in the atmosphere.
Eventually I had to figure out a practical plan.